


Tentative Rhythm

by Liz_Starling



Series: First Impressions (non-sequential) [1]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Grand Theft Auto Setting, Fake AH Crew, Female Jack Pattillo, Gen, Origin Story, Team Same Voice - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-17
Updated: 2018-05-17
Packaged: 2019-05-08 04:34:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14686578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liz_Starling/pseuds/Liz_Starling
Summary: Jack and Ryan meet in a jailhouse in a backwards town in rural Texas. They're both young and new to crime, and it would be at least five years before either of them meets Geoff Ramsey. They set up a pact of non-aggression.





	Tentative Rhythm

If they were twenty years older and in prison instead of a jailhouse, they might have sealed the deal with a handshake and a quick power struggle of who could squeeze the other's hand harder. But they were young, and the police had nothing on them, so Jack offered Ryan a fist-bump and a solemn nod that, while neither of them were fully sure of the significance, surely conveyed gravitas.

They are young. Young and too clever for their own good, and lacking in allies, and this is how the best deals are made; no witnesses, no contracts, back rooms and bar stools and cigarettes. Ryan's new to Texas, and Jack knows it too well already. Neither have ever left the country, not when there's already too much to do here. They don't know how to trust other people, but they haven't been taught not to yet.

Jack is quick, brutal, and has always been taller and stronger than any boy her age. She's had to fight for everything she has, and it shows. She stands bouncing on her toes in tennis shoes, fingers tapping in some sort of archaic rhythm. Her shirt is at least five years old, and worn almost through at the hem, where her index finger and thumb have worried thin patches. It's a nervous tick she can't afford, and she'll throw it away before she throws away the shirt.

Her smile is sharp, and it conveys more danger than it does friendliness. It's still Texas, so she's polite when the situation warrants it, but Jack never got anything good from being sweet.  Her shorts are cutoffs, and there's a set of brass knuckles tucked away in one pocket. Her hair is jagged, cut with a butterfly knife; red, wild, and dirty. She hasn't kill anyone yet, but she thinks she'd like to.

Ryan is just barely taller,  hasn't learned to hide the still rounded face, the easy grin, and he's still learning to develop the muscles that go along with that height to cut an intimidating form. There are a pair of glasses perched on the bridge of his yet to be broken nose, and his hair is just long enough to pull into a tail. The memory of Georgia is still beading sweat at the back of his neck, and the soft husk of an accent still roughs his voice.

He doesn't go by any moniker now, hasn't graced the front pages. The Vagabond has yet to rise, and Ryan's never even been to Los Santos. He's got at least three knives strapped to his torso, and his heavy black boots have steel in the toes. About seven hours ago, he was tracing one of those knives along the check bone of what was once a wealthy banker and what is now a cooled corpse. He's new to torture, and he thinks he doesn't like it as much as the rush of blood in the middle of a fight.  


He needs someone who's willing to take a chance on the new guy, and she needs someone who know how to handle a gun. She agrees to show him around, and he agrees to look intimidating in front of the big shots she can't afford to offend who think that being a woman makes Jack easy to push around. They're both still small-time, sneaking into jewelry stores and roughing up whoever decides that they don't like how high the price of cocaine is anymore.  


Theirs is a temporary truce, just lasting for the few months that Ryan stays in Austin before he keeps moving west. By the time he gets to California he's lost the baby fat, lost the glasses, kept the boots. It's years before Jack makes the move herself, lured away from Texas by promises of something bigger. They don't keep in touch, don't even know each other's real last names, but they end up in the same town anyway. Los Santos calls to something inside of them, primal and newly awakened, a rhythm that their blood recognizes.  


They run into each other. It's inevitable. It's probably a miracle that they don't end up on opposite sides of the battlefield. Ryan, who still remembers Jack's mean grin and dirty mouth, recognizes the fiery bruiser as Texas's pride. Jack, who is confronted with a skull mask and a leather jacket, has nothing to connect the mercenary to the boy she worked with years ago. It's his voice that gives him away, a couple weeks later, when they're still working the same job, still tentatively on the same side. But when the work dries up they go their separate ways.  


They're aware of each other, never really working in the same circles, careful to rotate around each other just so, so that there's never a chance of a conflict of interest. Not to assume that there would be one, of course. They're professionals at heart, and if Jack keeps an eye on what jobs the Vagabond takes, it's because she's always looking at the competition. And if Ryan handpicks the jobs that allow him to skate unnoticed by Jack's crew, it's because he doesn't want to make an enemy of someone who knows his face.  


They exist like that for ages, but there are only so many criminals, even in Los Santos, and they run into each other at the oddest times.  Jack's walking out of a convenience store, a bag of the money from the register in one hand, pistol in the other,  and Ryan's been taking potshots at the flickering neon lights in the windows. She gives him a thumbs up and he shoots the phone out of the cashier's hand.

Ryan heads out on a jet ski with a concrete block under one arm, and a suspiciously limp companion riding bitch. When he comes back without either, Jack's sitting on the edge of the dock, smoking, and waves lazily at him. They liberate an ATV together and run over camp fires, crushing beach chairs and taking wild knife swings at anyone who's dumb enough to stick around. He keeps his mask on, and she's careful not to call him Ryan.

They bar hop sometimes, Jack hustling pool because it's still the funniest thing in the world to her, Ryan sitting back and watching, content to let someone else be the most dangerous person in the room for once. It works, but neither of them got to where they are by trusting other people, so Jack makes sure to keep sober, and Ryan always keeps a couple of knives up his sleeve. They both carry guns on the regular, but that's a given considering their line of work.

Ryan keeps freelancing and Jack hitches herself to an up and coming new kingpin, himself fresh from a well-known gang back east. Ramsey's ambitious and just clever enough to actually make it in Los Santos, and he's got the resources, got the connections. The two-man crew grows bigger, carving out a hunk of city to call their own. Geoff tells her they need to start recruiting. Jack tells him she may have someone in mind.  


Together, the Gents rule Los Santos. They never settle for anything less than royalty.


End file.
